Monday, July 23, 2007

Brain Drain: Slogging Through Mental Mud

I have been stuck on chapter 19 of my current novel for quite a while now. Why? I really couldn't tell you the reason. Oh sure, I could give you a list of excuses as long a West Texas rattlesnake...but they are just that, excuses. I'll admit, I do have some damn good ones though. In the end I have to chalk it up to lazyness. To tell the truth, I really didn't have to read that AP story about the world's tallest man meeting the world's smallest...but I did. That was enough time to write at least a couple of lines in my novel. I always seem to find something else more interesting to do than work on Sethyr's adventures.

My first novel was an exercise in plodding. I usually wrote four or five pages a week, but they eventually added up to a complete, albeit short, novel. I also wrote the first 18 chapters of my new novel at about the same pace. I guess I just gotta get plodding again and return to plotting. At least with my first I had a general outline. With this new one I am kind of flying blind. That may be one of my problems...but more likely it is just one more excuse.